Yitzhar resident arrested after posting suspected threat to soldiers

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A female resident of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar was arrested on suspicion of incitement of violence against Israeli soldiers.

The woman, 22, made her comments in a closed community email group, Ynet reported Wednesday.

“I support throwing rocks (at Jews, and of course on Arabs without question). In certain circumstances – even if the rocks lead to the death of a soldier!!!” she reportedly wrote.

The comments were made in the wake of the demolition last month of several illegal structures in the settlement,

She was arrested Wednesday after other Yitzhar residents reported the posts to the police, according to Haaretz. Her husband also was called in for questioning.

The arrest follows several weeks of clashes between Yitzhar residents and security forces.

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, dean of Yitzhar’s Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, which was taken over for several days last month by Israeli forces following the clashes, said in a statement issued Wednesday that he has “clearly spoke(n) out against acts of violence from Yitzhar residents against the army.”

He decried the arrest last week of Yitzhar residents Amichai and Nira Matuki in connection with the arsoning of a mosque in the northern Israeli town of Umm el-Fahm last week, and the threats he said were made against the couple, including being “prevented from seeking out legal counsel, threatened that they would not see their children again, prevented from going to the bathroom (and) subject to multiple body cavity searches,” and said that the Torah should be the moral “compass” by which the country is run.